Enlightenment Under the Pippala Tree

  Bodhgaya, India
Sunday, December 31, 2006

Bodhi Tree and Mahabodhi Mahavihara

Around the Mahabodhi Temple, a few ancient Pippala, known now as Bodhi trees, provide shade for those performing prostrations, meditating, circumambulating the Mahabodhi Temple, or creating mandalas. Their branches extend outwards in all directions, holding pointed heart-shaped leaves towards the sun.

Enlightenment

The Bodhi tree did more than to provide refuge for the Buddha, it also provided him with essential insights as to the interconnected nature of the world, something the Buddha called dependent arising.

The Bodhi tree's leaves provide energy to the rest of the tree. The leaves are dependent on water and nutrients extracted from the soil with the help of roots and symbiotic fungi.

Pippala Tree Leaf

The leaves are also dependent on the trunk and branches of the tree, to ensure that the leaves can receive sunlight and the water and nutrients brought from the roots. From the air, the leaves require carbon dioxide. Without the sun, there would be no light energy to transform into glucose, to create the life-giving wet monsoons, to heat the earth.

Monk Holding Bodhi Tree Leaf

At one time, the leaf, the roots, the trunk, and the branches were all contained in essence, in a small seed. Before that, the essential nature of the seed and the tree were contained in a flower. Before that, flower, the seed, and the tree were all essentially contained in a bud. Prior to that, a new branch contained all the essence of the bud, the flower, the seed, and the tree. Once that tree was also a seed. In this way, all trees are related to all other trees.

When the leaf falls to the ground, once again it turns into nutrients, becoming part of the earth, the soil. Part of its nutrients may enter the Ganges river. Part of its moisture may re-enter the atmosphere. Part of it may be eaten by soil microbes or be reabsorbed into the tree. This cycle continues, unbroken.

We then breathe in oxygen, created by the Bodhi tree and other trees, and breathe out carbon dioxide, which then is used by the Bodhi tree leaf.

Prostrating Woman

In this way, all things are interconnected with all other things. We have been a part of everything and everything has been and is a part of us. For this reason, at a deeper level, there is no independent self.

The same interconnectedness occurs in the mind and with the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death, a twelve part cycle beginning with ignorance called dependent origination.

The Diamond Throne

In all, the Buddha stayed near the Bodhi tree for forty-nine days. For the first week, he sat under the Bodhi tree and achieved Enlightenment, meditating upon dependent origination, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eight-fold Path during a thunder storm. Directly perceiving the Truths of dependent origination, one is freed from the cycle and liberated.

For the second week, the Buddha gazed at the Bodhi tree with motionless eyes in appreciation.

Ratana Camkamna, the Jeweled Walkway

For the third week, the Buddha performed walking meditation.

For the forth week, the Buddha contemplated deeper levels of Truth and means to teach them to people with various personalities.

Nightscape I

For the fifth week, the Buddha continued to solidify his thoughts under a Banyan tree.

For the sixth week, the Buddha meditated in enjoyment under a Mucalinda tree.

For the seventh week, the Buddha enjoyed the bliss of Emancipation under a Rajayatana tree.

The Bodhi Tree at Night

Mahabodhi Mahavihara Temple at Night, part III

At all times of the day, for many hours, I stayed at the Mahabodhi Temple area. Before dawn, a stillness pervaded. At dawn, monks arrived for prayers. During the day, monks prayed as pilgrims encircled the temples, prostrated, made offerings, created mandalas, and spun their prayer wheels. At night, most people left, and the temple was lit a yelow color.

At all times, the place radiated peace infused with clear energy.